Canada’s Innovation Budget / Superclusters

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the 2017 budget included an Innovation and Skills Plan. This is a bold and visionary plan for the development of the country. It is driven by concerns for the stability of the USA as a long-term trading partner and focuses on building the necessary assets required to be a leading country in tomorrow’s global innovation economy. The future state plan is multi-faceted targeting major investments in the development of their ecosystem around six superclusters and emerging industries. It also incorporates the building of new education offerings around lifelong learning for both the current workforce and next generation of students and workers. While many regions around the world are working on their regional cluster strategies, this marks a leading trend of county-wide strategies targeting the development and integration of cross-region assets into superclusters.

Here is a quick summary of the budget announcement.

Proposed industry efforts include:

$950 million CAD ($709.8 million USD) over five years to develop superclusters in six key national industries:

advanced manufacturing

agri-food

cleantech

digital industries

health/bio-sciences

clean resource

(+ 7. emerging AI cluster)

$50 million CAD ($37.4 million USD) to launch Innovative Solutions Canada. This is a government procurement program modeled after the United States’ Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

$400 million CAD ($298.9 million USD) over three years to help drive investment in growth-stage companies. Through the Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative (VCCI), the Business Development Bank of Canada would make late stage venture capital deals with the intent of stimulating co-investment from the private sector. The government hopes to unlock nearly $1.5 billion CAD ($1.1 billion USD) in private sector investments through these efforts.

Proposed education and research efforts include:

$3.1 billion CAD ($2.3 billion USD) for research and research training – e.g., scholarships, fellowships, research grants, and support for the overhead costs associated with federally funded research conducted in post-secondary institutions.

$741 million CAD ($553.3 billion USD) for investments to accelerate infrastructure projects at universities and colleges and affiliated institutions through the Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund.

$340 million CAD ($253.9 million USD) in planned support for equipment and facilities for post-secondary institutions, research hospitals, and other not-for-profit institutions.

$158 million CAD ($118 million USD) for several of the country’s public-private partnerships such as Mitacs, Genome Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Stem Cell Network, the Institute for Quantum Computing, Brain Canada and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Proposed Workforce efforts include:

$454.4 million CAD ($339.3 million USD) over four years, starting in 2018–19, and $46.3 million CAD ($34.6 million USD) per year thereafter, to help Canada’s middle-class workers find and keep good jobs.

$225 million CAD ($168 million USD) over four years, starting in 2018–19, and $75 million CAD ($65 million USD) per year thereafter, to establish a new organization to support skills development and measurement in Canada.

$221 million CAD ($165 million USD) over five years to fund up to 10,000 work-integrated learning placements for post-secondary students and graduates each year.

$186 million CAD ($138.9 million USD) would be provided to support other, unspecified research and development and related scientific activities in the higher education sector.

$7.8 million over two years to implement a new visa program that would allow certain skilled workers to obtain a work permit.

$50 million CAD ($37.4 million USD) for a new initiative – Coding Kids. The new two-year initiative would help teach Canadian children how to code to help prepare them for future IT-related careers.